Running to Stand Still

  

Joshua Tree / U2



He’d arrived. The weight lifting from his shoulders as the smile spread wide across his weathered face. He even removed his hat, out of respect. The wide brimmed Stetson held before him as he scanned the room.

It didn’t matter that it was almost midnight, the station nearly empty, and he had no destination left. An old woman was asleep in the corner. An older Hispanic man was sweeping the day’s sands into a neat pile. She sat in the middle of the room, staring at nothing.

“This seat taken?” He asked with a small smile, gesturing to the bench next to her.

She glanced up at the sound of a voice; her eyes scanned him, then the bench and back. She gave a slight negative shake of her head and turned away, shrinking back.

She was young. Twenty, maybe? Seventeen? It was hard to tell. The older he got the younger they looked. He glanced down; she was holding the edge of her sleeves, pulled over her hand, like fingerless gloves, like Jenny, in grade school.

“Pretty empty…”

“Wasn’t earlier. Most have left.” She shrugged, and glanced to the door opposite where they entered.

“You’re still here?” It was both a statement and a question.

She shrugged again before silence fell between them.

“Why are you sitting here?” She asked finally.

“You looked like you needed company.”

She snorted, but her shoulders relaxed slightly. She pushed her hair back behind her ears, the black line across her wrist visible for a second, than covered up again by the hem of her sleeve.

“I didn’t expect it to be like this.” She looked to him, her eyes glassy, confused, pleading.

“I reckon no one does.” He answered slowly, afraid to ask what she expected. What did any one expect?

The silence fell between them again.

“What happens now?” She asked, her eyes glancing toward the door.

“Don’t know.”

“Nietzsche said, ‘Man is the cruelest animal, when he invented hell for himself, behold, that was his very heaven.’” She stared straight ahead.

“And ‘Everyone who has ever built anywhere a ‘new heaven” first found the power thereto in his own hell.’”

She smiled then, glancing at him. He shrugged.  So much like Jenny.